St. Croix Catholic School (SCCS) is a consolidated Preschool through 8th grade school located adjacent to St. Michael's Catholic Church in the town of Stillwater, a beautiful community in Minnesota's St. Croix River Valley.

Catholic education has been a beacon in the St. Croix Valley for over 150 years. In 1856, three years after the establishment of the parish of St. Michael, the church began educating students. The first classes were held in the church and later in a school building adjacent to the church. These first church and school were located on the North Hill of Stillwater just north of the northwest corner of Fourth and Mulberry Streets. This parish school served the needs of the first immigrant families. Most of these families were from New Brunswick and Ireland.

The third school building, Clancy Memorial, was dedicated in 1913. Clancy, a wealthy Irish widower with no heirs, left his estate to St. Michael’s School with instructions to construct a new building. This school building, which is presently used to house the media rooms, office, and 4 classrooms, served the parish until 1959. In 1959, a fund drive collected $400,000 to add a twelve-room wing onto this structure.

Today it may seem redundant that within several blocks of the St. Michael’s Church and school another church would be built - St. Mary’s which was the parish of the German Catholics. This can be explained by the differing attitudes of the immigrant groups. During the early days of immigration, ethnic groups approached the idea of citizenship and religious loyalties in different ways. The Irish, such as Archbishop John Ireland, believed that Catholics of all ethnic groups should strive to become part of the mainstream of American life. He felt that it was not incompatible to be a good American. Indeed, he felt that the mission of the Church should be to aid Catholics in the assimilation process so that these new immigrants could become a major societal force on the emerging American consciousness. An example of this open attitude can be seen in Ireland’s unique arrangement made with the public school in 1891. Both the public school district and the Catholic school were having financial difficulties. The Church and State found a solution in a cooperative arrangement whereby the Church leased the St. Michael’s School building to the school district for a nominal fee. The nuns became district employees and taught religion only during after school hours to those students who chose religious instruction. The arrangement was dropped after only one year because it was attacked by conservative Catholics, who felt the faith of their children was being undermined, and by non-Catholics, who feared that Church and State dangerously intermingled. Nevertheless, the experiment was an interesting forerunner of the greater cooperation between the public and Catholic schools that would come later.

In contrast, the German Catholics of St. Mary’s were concerned that a loss of their cultural identity would serve to undermine the faith of their people. Especially important to the Germans was the importance of retaining their language, culture, and values. Many Germans considered their culture as having sounder values than the “melting pot” culture they were thrust into. Thus, schools would be an important vehicle in the retention of the culture and faith. For these reasons, it is understandable that at first there would be two parishes and two schools in Stillwater, each funded separately and with different missions.

The St. Mary’s German Catholic School opened in 1872 and was operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet for ten years. In 1882, however, the Benedictine nuns from St. Joseph, Minnesota took over the operation of the school. Between 1882 and 1968, the two parishes operated two distinct schools.

This arrangement continued until an illness of the principal of the St. Mary’s School in 1968 resulted in a shared staff arrangement with St. Michael’s School. The benefit of sharing resources was noted by the two parish communities. Therefore, in March 1968, a consolidation effort began. St. Charles Church in Bayport joined this consolidation. The purposes of the consolidation were to give the students a wider variety of teachers and resources, to provide the students with single grade classrooms, to offer the students more programs and competition, and to provide a physical education program. The consolidated school for students in grades Kindergarten through 8^th grade became known as St. Croix Catholic School.

It was also at this time that a shared-time arrangement was sought with the public school system. Since the St. Michael’s school building could not provide facilities deemed necessary for a full choice of courses at the junior high level, a system of sharing resources was adopted. From that time, until the 1998 – 1999 school year, students took home economics, industrial technology, science, and instrumental music at the Stillwater Junior High School in the morning hours. They received instruction in their academic courses and religion at St. Croix Catholic School. This cooperative arrangement between the public and private schools served the students well; however, as St. Croix Catholic School grew and Stillwater Junior High School moved to a new location, the scheduling and transportation arrangements for such an arrangement became more complicated.

As an answer to this, in the fall of 1999, the St. Croix Catholic Middle School concept began. The Middle School included students in grades 6 through 8 and classes in Science, Communication Arts, Art, and Computers were added to the curriculum for these students. All classes for SCCS Middle School students were on the school campus except Band and Orchestra for those students choosing to take instrumental music. Today even Band, Orchestra and Liturgical Choir are available at St. Croix Catholic School.

By the late 1990’s St. Croix Catholic School had two classes of each grade from Kindergarten through 8^th grade and waiting lists for almost all grades existed. The Church of St. Michael which owns the school building was planning a building improvement project for the Church and it was logical to include expansion of the school to accommodate students on the waiting list. In fall of 2001, a building expansion and remodeling to include a new gymnasium and nine (9) new classrooms was completed. The school began that year with three classrooms for each grade Kindergarten through 5^th grade.

Today, St. Croix Catholic School is an educational community of almost 420 students - 285 students in grades Kindergarten through 5th grade and 134 students in a 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Middle School. Ark of Angels Montessori Preschool opened in 2005. Approximately 55 students attend classes in the preschool.